"I am proud to announce that the United States has safely destroyed the last munition in that stockpile, bringing us one step closer to a world free from the horrors of chemical weapons.", so President Biden announced yesterday that the United States has finished destroying all of its stockpiles of chemical weapons.
The Pentagon anticipated on Friday that the last munition in the nation's chemical weapons arsenal had been safely destroyed.
The International Chemical Weapons Convention was ratified by the United States in 1997. The treaty prohibits the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, transfer or use of chemical weapons by of all members.
The latest M55 rocket filled with the nerve agent sarin was destroyed 7 July at Blue Grass Army Depot, Kentucky (frame).
"This is an important day for the US chemical demilitarization program", Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth said. "After years of design, construction, testing and operation, these obsolete weapons have been safely disposed of. The US Army is proud to have played a key role in making this demilitarization possible."
The destruction of US chemical weapons stockpiles, which once included more than 30.000 tons of chemical warfare agents, began in 1990 on Johnston Atoll in the Pacific. The United States Army went on to complete successful weapons destruction at six other sites in the continental United States by 2012 at installations in Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Maryland, Oregon and Utah.
While stockpiles were being destroyed, additional legislation required the Department of Defense to build technologies to destroy chemical weapons with alternatives to incineration. The successful implementation of alternative technologies has led to the safe destruction of the remaining chemical supplies.
Frame: US DoD
